My rEEEview of the Asus Eeepc 900

Ok im a a week or so into my ownership of the Asus Eeepc and I think that I can now give a fair review. Because I'm a giant nerd the first thing I had to do is get rid of Xandros. Xandros is a huge pie o shit. This has nothing to do with the patient agreement with Micrsoft they have, this is solely about software... its shit. Nothing was intuitive, it seemed like there was a hodgepodge of software and none of it was integrated. So I tried to install eeebuntu. Tried is the operative word, the version of ubnetbootin was borked, and after a day of hacking on it, i had gotten nowhere and I was at work and had no net access so I was stuck trying to get
that download working. Once i got home i decided to try ubuntu-eee and OMFG is it great the older and better version of ubnetbootin was preconfigured for the ubuntu-eee hardy image and installed first try, NO ISSUES!!!!! Everything but the SD card slot works. Wifi,
webcam, sleep, power saving, all of it, so eff an SD card slot. You can see screenshots at http://www.unixporn.com/screenshots/thumbnails.php?album=5

And now on to hardware I got the 8.9 inch eeepc 900 with a 900 MHz Intel Celeron processor, 16 gb sshd, and 1gb of ram. this thing is awesome!! the keyboard is a bit of a pain in the ass. but i am getting used to it. these keys are tiny, but that isn't the real problem. the real issue is all of the non letter keys (tab, enter, backspace) are smaller than the letter keys. that drives me nuts! but again i am getting used to it. i really don't know what else to say this thing is tiny and pretty powerful. I could have gotten this with a 1.n GHz Intel atom processor but I don't feel like i am missing anything 900mgz is more than enough

For all of the uber nerds here is my lshw:

three@ScreeechOwl:~$ lshw
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
screeechowl
description: Computer
width: 32 bits
*-core
description: Motherboard
physical id: 0
*-memory
description: System memory
physical id: 0
size: 1002MiB
*-cpu
product: Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 900MHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
physical id: 1
bus info: cpu@0
version: 6.13.8
size: 900MHz
capacity: 900MHz
width: 32 bits
capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse
sse2 ss tm pbe nx up bts cpufreq
*-pci
description: Host bridge
product: Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 100
bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
configuration: driver=agpgart-intel module=intel_agp
*-display:0 UNCLAIMED
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
*-display:1 UNCLAIMED
description: Display controller
product: Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2.1
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
*-multimedia
description: Audio device
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1b
bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0
version: 04
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0 module=snd_hda_intel
*-pci:0
description: PCI bridge
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport-driver
*-pci:1
description: PCI bridge
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c.1
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.1
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport-driver
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: L2 100 Mbit Ethernet Adapter
vendor: Attansic Technology Corp.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: a0
serial: 00:22:15:2e:d3:b2
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=atl2 driverversion=2.0.5 firmware=L2 latency=0 module=atl2 multicast=yes
*-pci:2
description: PCI bridge
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.2
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport-driver
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter
vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
logical name: wifi0
version: 01
serial: 00:15:af:b5:91:79
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath_pci latency=0 module=ath_pci multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g
*-usb:0
description: USB Controller
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1d
bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: uhci bus_master
configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 module=uhci_hcd
*-usb:1
description: USB Controller
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1d.1
bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.1
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: uhci bus_master
configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 module=uhci_hcd
*-usb:2
description: USB Controller
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1d.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.2
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: uhci bus_master
configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 module=uhci_hcd
*-usb:3
description: USB Controller
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1d.3
bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.3
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: uhci bus_master
configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 module=uhci_hcd
*-usb:4
description: USB Controller
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1d.7
bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.7
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: ehci bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ehci_hcd latency=0 module=ehci_hcd
*-pci:3
description: PCI bridge
product: 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1e
bus info: pci@0000:00:1e.0
version: d4
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci subtractive_decode bus_master cap_list
*-isa
description: ISA bridge
product: 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: isa bus_master
configuration: latency=0
*-ide
description: IDE interface
product: 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.2
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: ide bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=ata_piix latency=0 module=ata_piix
*-serial UNCLAIMED
description: SMBus
product: 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.3
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.3
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
configuration: latency=0
*-scsi
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@2
logical name: scsi2
capabilities: scsi-host
configuration: driver=usb-storage

How to turn RPM packages into DEB packages with Alien

I just posted this step by step tutorial on how to change an rpm package to a deb package. Feed back is welcome, either post in the comments or you can email me at three [at] threethirty [dot] us

Link

The Reason Why Ubuntu Wins Hardware Vendors' Polls

I was listening to the most recent Distrowatch OGGcast http://distrowatch.com/podcast/dww20070910.mp3
and the host brought up an interesting question, why does Ubuntu win all of the polls? Well here are my reasons why the next top competitors aren't on top.

Suse (SLED and OpenSUSE): No one trusts Novell. People tend to switch to Linux to get away from Microsoft, so why use a partner's distro?!?

Mandriva: I think Mandrivia is just crap, they focus way too much on the "club" (the tossers that actually pay for it) and don't focus enough on community building.

Debian: scary server OS

Fedora: I don't like Fedora. Okay scratch that, I hate RPM (RedHat Package Manager) . All Fedora needs is a new package manager (how about apt) and it would be fine. I would still reformat and put Ubuntu on, but Fedora may survive the first day.

Gentoo and Slackware: will never win because they are too damn difficult.

Mint Linux: may win the poll but will never come from the OEM because of the non-free codecs and shit they add (some illegally)

PCLinuxOS: name, the name sucks

[Note] I will update this (maybe repost) with more distros as I think of them and why they will not win.

The definitive dual-booting guide: Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step

Today/Yesterday I posted a link to the RLUG Ubuntu Help Blog Titled exactly as this post, it is seriously "The definitive dual-booting guide". Dual booting is not really a fun thing to do, and I think this will make it really not too hard.

here is that link btw http://rlugubuntuhelp.blogspot.com/2007/09/definitive-dual-booting-guide-linux.html

Reiew: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Well honestly i can't review it much, X got stuck in a loop of crashes, but I did notice a new option when booting up the live CD OEM Install. This makes me happy, now computer companies have no excuse not to offer a system preinstalled with Ubuntu.

As for me, it looks like I'll have to wait until the beta release to get to experience Gutsy Gibbon.

Okay NOW you have no reason not to not try Linux

Look we have tried to make Linux easy for everyone, non-text installs, Live CD's and DVD's, LUG's, install-fest's, etc, etc. But now we have done the one think that makes trying Linux as brainless as installing Windows apps.

I bring you Wubi.

Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you.

Wubi is Safe

It does not require you to modify the partitions of your PC, or to use a different bootloader.

Wubi is Simple

Just run the installer, no need to burn a CD.

Wubi is Discrete

Wubi keeps most of the files in one folder, and If you do not like, you can simply uninstall it.

Wubi is Free

Wubi (like Ubuntu) is free as in beer and as in freedom. You will get this part later on, the important thing now is that it cost absolutely nothing, it is our gift to you...

screenshots can be found here
a FAQ can be found here

You can get support here